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“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” according to Moore’s prepared testimony. “Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species.”

“It is important to recognize, in the face of dire predictions about a [two degrees Celsius] rise in global average temperature, that humans are a tropical species,” Moore said. “We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing.”

“It could be said that frost and ice are the enemies of life, except for those relatively few species that have evolved to adapt to freezing temperatures during this Pleistocene Ice Age,” he added. “It is ‘extremely likely’ that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.”

“When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time,” he added. “Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today.”

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

New research suggests a strong link between the powerful smell of pine trees and climate change.

Scientists say they've found a mechanism by which these scented vapours turn into aerosols above boreal forests.
These particles promote cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping clouds to form.

The research, published in the journal Nature, fills in a major gap in our understanding, researchers say.
One of the biggest holes in scientific knowledge about climate change relates to the scale of the impact of atmospheric aerosols on temperatures.

Perfumed air These particles form clouds that block sunlight as well as reflecting rays back into space.
They can be formed in a number of ways, including volcanic activity and by humans, through the burning of coal and oil.

Does this make it sound like burning fossil fuels can actually deter global warming?

Cooling effect The authors believe that this is playing a significant role in reducing the impact of rising temperatures. They argue that this effect is likely to strengthen in the future.

"In a warmer world, photosynthesis will become faster with rising CO2, which will lead to more vegetation and more emissions of these vapours," said lead author, Dr Mikael Ehn, now based at the University of Helsinki.

"This should produce more cloud droplets and this should then have a cooling impact, it should be a damping effect."

The scientists stress that the new understanding is not a panacea for climate change as forests will stop emitting vapours if they become too stressed from heat or lack of water. (So we have to burn more fossil fuel so that it will help block heat, and help out the pine trees?)

However, Dr Ehn believes the vapours could have a significant impact in the medium term.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

So what do you guys think of the Ds pulling an all-nighter to talk about the importance of climate change?

The conservative spin on this is that they did this to placate Tom Steyer, who has said he will contribute $100 million to D campaigns, with his pet project being climate change; and that this all-nighter was to convince him that Ds support action on climate change.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

So what do you guys think of the Ds pulling an all-nighter to talk about the importance of climate change?

The conservative spin on this is that they did this to placate Tom Steyer, who has said he will contribute $100 million to D campaigns, with his pet project being climate change; and that this all-nighter was to convince him that Ds support action on climate change.

YOKOHAMA, Japan — Cli-mate change is already hav-ing sweeping effects on every continent and throughout the world’s oceans, scientists reported Monday, and they warned that the problem is likely to grow substantially worse unless greenhouse emissions are brought under control.

The report by the Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U. N. group that periodically summarizes cli-mate science, concluded that ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating toward the poles or in some cases going extinct.

The oceans are rising at a pace that threatens coastal communities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide given off by cars and power plants, which is killing some creatures or stunting their growth, the report found.

Organic matter frozen in Arctic soils since before civili-zation began is now melting, allowing it to decay into greenhouse gases that will cause further warming, the scientists said.

And the worst is yet to come, the scientists said in the sec-ond of three reports that are expected to carry considerable weight next year as nations try to agree on a new global climate treaty. In par-ticular, the report emphasized that the world’s food supply is at considerable risk — a threat that could have serious consequences for the poorest nations.

The report was among the most sobering yet issued by the intergovernmental panel.

The report released Monday in Yokohama is the final work of several hundred authors.

The report attempts to proj-ect how the effects will alter human society in coming decades.

It cited the risk of death or injury on a massive scale, probable damage to public health, displacement of people and potential mass migrations.

“Throughout the 2-1st centu-ry, climate change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make pov-erty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and cre-ate new poverty traps, the lat-ter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger,” the report declared.

The report also cites the possibility of violent conflict over land or other resources, brought on indirectly by cli-mate change “by exacerbat-ing well established drivers of these conflicts such as pover-ty and economic shocks.”